The latest British Social Attitudes survey of the NHS finds the first rise in public satisfaction since the pandemic, though questions remain.
Public satisfaction with how the NHS is run has increased for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report from The King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust.
The think tanks looked at data from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, which was carried out by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) between August and October last year.
In 2019, 60% of respondents said that they were satisfied with the NHS, and this figure had been spiralling downwards, reaching a record low of just one in five (21%) in 2024.
The authors of Public satisfaction with the NHS and social care in 2025 say the year-on-year falls in satisfaction seen since the pandemic appear to have eased, and while these results will be a welcome relief for the government, they do not offer a solid signal as to whether the bounce in NHS satisfaction marks a decisive turning point.
“The rise in public satisfaction will be welcome relief for an NHS that has seen satisfaction plummet in recent years. But whether this marks the start of a genuine recovery or is just brief respite remains an open question. Much will depend on how quickly the government can improve access to care,” said Dan Wellings, senior fellow at The King’s Fund.
Access to services
Around half of respondents (51%) said they were ‘very’ or ‘quite’ dissatisfied, marking a drop of eight percentage points from 2024. Despite this, only half of respondents (50%) said they were satisfied with the quality of NHS care in 2025, and only 16% of respondents thought the standard of NHS care would improve in the next five years.
Access to services is still the major issue for the public, and only around a fifth (22%) said they were satisfied with A&E services. When asked what the top three priorities for the NHS should be, nearly half (46%) of respondents selected both ‘making it easier to get a GP appointment’ and ‘improved A&E waiting times’ as their top priorities.
As in previous years, a strong majority of respondents agreed that the founding principles of the NHS should ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ apply: 89% said that the NHS should be free of charge when you need to use it, almost four out of five (81%) said that the NHS should primarily be funded through taxes and nearly three-quarters (74%) said the NHS should be available to everyone.
“It is true that there are some signs of clear progress that would have meant that a continued fall in satisfaction would have felt unfair: patient experience surveys show small signs of improvement; waiting lists have stabilised; productivity has begun to improve,” wrote Thea Stein, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, and Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of The King’s Fund, in an article.
But, they warned, these changes are perhaps less the result of the government achieving some kind of sudden change in the NHS, and more the result of its presiding over a continued, slow, steady recovery.
Growing challenge
Responding to the survey, Tim Mitchell, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, highlighted the 45% of respondents for whom improving waiting times for planned operations remains a top priority.
This is “a clear sign patients” are still waiting too long for the care they need, and “tackling these delays must start with expanding surgical capacity: increasing access to operating theatres and investing in the hospital infrastructure that is required to treat more patients,” he said.
David Hare, chief executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, said that it was encouraging to see a small rise in public satisfaction with the NHS, but that these figures still reflect a system under significant strain.
“At a time of sustained pressure, making full use of all available resources across the system will be key to improving access, reducing waits and ensuring patients have real choice about where they receive their care,” he said.
Georgina Howe, chief executive of telemedicine and virtual healthcare company Teladoc Health UK, put the findings into a broader perspective.
“For employers, these findings highlight a growing challenge. Delays in accessing care don’t just affect individuals, they have a direct impact on productivity, absence and long-term health outcomes,” she said.
